Motivational Quotes

Action

The common conception is that motivation leads to action, but the reverse is true -- action precedes motivation. You have to prime the pump and get the juice flowing, which motivates you to work on your goals. Getting momentum going is the most difficult part of the job, and often taking the first step is enough to prompt you to make the best of your day.

- Mckain, Robert J.

Best Quotes about Action

When we don't have what we like, we must like what we have.

Proverb, French

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.

Aristotle

The person who doesn't scatter the morning dew will not comb gray hairs

Proverb, Irish

Being stuck is a position few of us like. We want something new but cannot let go of the old -- old ideas, beliefs, habits, even thoughts. We are out of contact with our own genius. Sometimes we know we are stuck; sometimes we don't. In both cases we have to DO something.

Teekens, Inga

Every man of action has a strong dose of egoism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be regarded as high qualities if he can make them the means to achieve great ends.

Gaulle, Charles De

Most people of action are inclined to fatalism and most of thought believe in providence.

Balzac, Honore De

If it were done when 'tis done, then t'were well. It were done quickly.

Shakespeare, William

Many are called but few get up.

Herford, Oliver

As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears.

Lu Xun

10.

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

Eliot, George

11.

Better to try something and fail than to try nothing and succeed.

12.

To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

13.

Men do not value a good deed unless it brings a reward.

Ovid

14.

Don't be a spectator, don't let life pass you by.

Holtz, Lou

15.

The person of intellect is lost unless they unite with energy of character. When we have the lantern of Diogenese we must also have his staff.

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

16.

You don't always win your battles, but it's good to know you fought.

Holmes, Marjorie

17.

The greatest step is out the door.

Proverb, German

18.

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.

Bronowski, Jacob

19.

All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man's actions.

Einstein, Albert

20.

Where there is a will, there is a way. If there is a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to keep what you want from ending, do it. Pry the door open or, if need be, wedge your foot in that door and keep it open.

Pine, Arthur

21.

We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

22.

Have a bias toward action -- let's see something happen now. You can break that big plan into small steps and take the first step right away.

Thalheimer, Richard

23.

He who strikes first, strikes twice.

Proverb, Mexican

24.

Just as a flower which seems beautiful and has color but no perfume, so are the fruitless words of the man who speaks them but does them not.

Dhammapada

25.

A man's action is only a picture book of his creed.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

26.

An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox.

Proverb, Mexican

27.

Words may show a man's wit but actions his meaning.

Franklin, Benjamin

28.

A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action.. You must act as you breathe.

Clemenceau, Georges

29.

You have to make it happen.

Greene, Joe

30.

When all is said and done, more is said than done.

Holtz, Lou

31.

Unless a capacity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior mind exists in torture.

Croce, Benedetto

32.

A good action is never lost; it is a treasure laid up and guarded for the doer's need.

Calderon de la Barca, Pedro

33.

Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk -- and to act.

Maltz, Maxwell

34.

Our deeds disguise us. People need endless time to try on their deeds, until each knows the proper deeds for him to do. But every day, every hour, rushes by. There is no time.

Long, Haniel

35.

He who considers too much will perform little.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

36.

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

Keller, Helen

37.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

Disraeli, Benjamin

38.

There is a tendency for things to right themselves.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

39.

Thought is the organizing factor in man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions.

Einstein, Albert

40.

A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you're not enough without the medal, you'll never be enough with it.

Movie, Cool Runnings

41.

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way. We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.

Aristotle

42.

If you go on working with the light available, you will meet your Master, as he himself will be seeking you.

Maharshi, Ramana

43.

The ancestor of every action is thought.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

44.

The view only changes for the lead dog.

Sergeant Preston of The Yukon

45.

Anything you do can get you fired; this includes doing nothing.

46.

I hear and I forget, I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

Proverb, Chinese

47.

You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.

Robbins, Anthony

48.

If you start soon enough, you won't have to run to catch up.

49.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. [James 1:22]

Bible

50.

Now is the season for sailing; for already the chattering swallow is come and the pleasant west wind; the meadows bloom and the sea, tossed up with waves and rough blasts, has sunk to silence. Weigh thine anchors and unloose thy hawsers, O Mariner, and sail with all thy canvas set.

Tarentum, Leonidas of